For years, the solution for powering AlienBees on-location was the Vagabond II. A 20-pound power rig, consisting of a power inverter and a large, very heavy battery to feed the lights. Picking the thing up and knowing you had to pack it into a remote location, along with another 150lbs of gear, was enough to make you second guess your lighting approach. “Hmmm, maybe those speedlites aren’t such a bad idea after all, besides… who needs F/16 from the light, I can settle for F/5.6, right?” It sucked. Just one more thing to pack, and it wasn’t going to great lengths to make my walk any easier either. I always felt bad asking someone to grab it and even pack it ten feet. “Hey, can you bring that cinderblock-of-a-battery over here,” as I watch their eyes grow wide as they pick it up. It didn’t make on-location work with strobes very fun. The only “plus” using the Vagabond II is having the ability to call your photo shoot a workout as well.

The summer of 2011 brought good news. Lighter, smaller, and almost just as powerful news, to be more specific. The Vagabond Mini was released. Compared to it’s 20-pound older brother, this thing promised almost just as many light pops, but came in a lithium battery form and weighed just over 3 pounds. The old Vagabond II provides up to 575 shots with a 640Ws light, while the new Mini gave 500 pops. That was good news for all of the AlienBee shooters out there doing location work. It weighed almost as little as some of my lenses! After discovering it’s release, I snatched-up a Mini. My power pack solution went from a complete pain to just another thing to toss in my miscellaneous gear bag. The Mini can handle up to 4 lights, while the original Vagabond can dish out power to up to 8 lights.

For smaller shoots (senior, family-style shoots), the Vagabond Mini is all I need to power my Bees. For commercial work, I still lug both my Vagabond Mini and II to shoots, as I’m using 4+ lights and they are often spread far apart. Having multiple power packs means faster recycle times and less extension cords running around. One thing the older model has over it’s newer, smaller sibling is faster recycle times. But… that’s something I can sacrifice when I’m asked to photograph someone a half mile in the woods.

Quickly after the introduction of the mini, the manufacturers announced the discontinuation of the Vagabond II, only making the Mini there on out. At the time of writing this article, you can special order the original, and even then it’s “while supplies last.”

Additional flexibility is added to the Mini with the ability to swap-out the battery pack on the unit. It’s lithium power source can be popped right off, allowing you to pop another fresh battery on the power inverter. This is great for those days where you will be pumping out a lot of pops, and don’t want to be caught out on-location with a dead battery and more pictures to take.

An amazingly simple, yet huge addition to the mini is the stand clip built into the body. This allows you to clip the battery right to the light stand, making light moves a lot easier. I’ve always hated having to double my movements with the old battery – move the stand as far as the light power cable will allow, walk back and grab battery, move it to under the stand. Now I can just pickup my light and move, battery clipped to stand and along for the ride. I attach the battery low on my light stand, effectively making it a power source and a 3-pound sandbag. This balances my light rig a bit more, making it less top-heavy.

We still live in a time where you have to make a decision that is a pretty substantial compromise – light with powerful, heavy strobes, or light with small, convenient, not nearly as powerful hot shoes. One thing is for sure, the gap on the decision making is closing. The Vagabond Mini definitely gets us one step closer to making the decision to go with big powerful lights that much easier.

Below is a couple shots of the two power packs. The mini is attached to the bottom of a light stand, with the older big boy where it belongs, on the ground.

Why Calibrate

Every single computer model, monitor, and operating system comes out of the box with default settings for levels of contrast, saturation, color cast, and brightness. Why is this a big deal? Who cares if your monitor present colors differently than anybody else’s? A little thing called standardization. If you want to deliver a quality, consistent product to your clients, you gotta hop on the standardization train. Unlike the color swatches you see in design applications, where clicking on a color box the designate colors for fonts, shapes, etc. where you know clicking that color box means exactly that (in terms of RGB levels), photographing the world as we know it doesn’t come with a color swatch. As a photographer, you pull up images on your computer and edit based off of sight, not a color swatch (swatches having standards across the board, ex. you don’t have to sweat what it will look like on another computer or in print, because the standard red in your color swatch, RGB value R:254 G:16 B:33 is what it is). You can throw all of that universal color reassurance out the window when you are editing photographs, because we are capturing light and colors, not making fonts and shapes and assigning color values to faces, backgrounds, etc. There is no standard color for the infinite combinations of colors and lighting tossed your way as a photographer. You tweak exposure, white balance, contrast levels, etc by looking at images, determining what settings best fit a particular image. So how do you know what you see on your computer screen will be accurately reproduced on other computer screens and more importantly print shops. How do you know what is a “proper” white balance on your screen isn’t completely off from industry standards? Ever edited photos, exported them to the web, and viewed them on another monitor only to see dramatic differences? From white balance to brightness, depending on the computer setup, things can look downright awful.

A poorly calibrated screen is like looking at the world through a pair of colored sunglasses. You can’t properly make accurate adjustments to your photos based off of sight, and you’ll end up compensating on your screen.

A poorly calibrated screen is like looking at the world through a pair of colored sunglasses. You can’t properly make accurate adjustments to your photos based off of sight, and you’ll end up compensating on your screen. For example, if you are unknowingly editing on a monitor that is displaying things “warmer” than it should be (more orange color cast), you’ll have to overcompensate with blue tones to present the image accurately on your monitor. That’s all fine and dandy until you look at your images on an properly calibrated monitor, or send your photos to print. You’ll end up with blue images, people looking like they are a long lost relative to Poppa Smurf. Does that make sense? To ensure you are making accurate edits, you have to have an accurate monitor to make these visual decisions.

You can’t sit and wonder how other people’s monitors are calibrated, but you can do your part and make sure your monitor is accurate. This will ensure that prints will look good. Besides, if someone else’s monitor is say… on the warmer side of things, everything they view will be warmer, so it’ll be… consistently… bad. Properly calibrating your monitor will immediately restore the confidence in your edits, and take the guesswork to if your prints will turnout. You need to edit for the world of monitors, mobile devices, and print, and how they will see it, not just your one monitor.

You need to edit for the world of monitors, mobile devices, and print, and how they will see it, not just your one monitor.

Preset and Default Color Profiles

Default color profiles on your computer don’t mean jack. I can’t say it any simpler than that. A very popular standard for example is Adobe RGB 1998. Every computer monitor will come out of the box with a different presentation of color, contrast, brightness, etc., so what makes you think you are properly displaying Adobe RGB 1998? The fact is you don’t. Your monitor might be close to industry standards, or it could be miles off. These profiles do not have any reference point to your make and model of computer or monitor, so this is the last thing you want to use for gauging color calibration.

Common Mistakes In Editing Due To Poor Calibration

Exposure and white balance are where I see most of the common mistakes of photographers. The kicker here is that it’s probably not even their fault, and are unknowingly using a poorly calibrated monitor. Exposure is obvious for most, as subjects will be way too bright or dark. I sit there and wonder as I thumb through their images, exposure so far off I being to speculate if they shot and edited with their eyes closed. White balance is an even more frequent problem. From what I’ve seen, most photographers in their first few years of photography wouldn’t know proper white balance if it came up and bit them in the ass. Some photographers never seek the information and spend their lives shooting and editing without a clue of the terrible edits being made. Not only will poor white balance leave images looking too warm or too cool, it does a giant disservice for color separation. It’s practically the same as if you were to put a sepia color filter on your images, turning everything to a brown color cast, with colors losing their importance. The same thing goes for standard white balance. If your images are too orange, it’s like you just put an orange filter on your whole image, and colors will lose their punch and separation.

Out of all the feedback I receive from my images, one of the top comments are, “wow, look at those colors!” Yes, I use high-end photo gear, which helps with contrast and saturation levels, but more importantly is the attention paid to white balance in post. Out of all of the edits I make to my images in post (which isn’t much), I spend by far the most time tweaking the white balance. I can shoot with a $6,000 camera setup all day long, but if I can’t nail my white balance in post, it’s all a loss, colors don’t pop, and everything looks bland. The age-old saying still holds true, you are only as strong as your weakest link.

Your Next Most Important Gear Purchase

It’s more important than your next camera body or lens purchase. It’s more important than any other upgrade you could possibly make to your photography. Somehow most monitors get neglected, it’s important of presentation overlooked and forgotten. You sweat bullets at your photo shoots, working as hard as you can to make photographic magic, only to completely crash and burn in post because you’ve overlooked the importance of a simple, hundred dollar purchase. Seriously? You are asking your clients to trust your abilities and “invest” and give you money to take their pictures, yet yet you can’t take the time to ensure your screen is even presenting the right colors? This reason (and many others) are why I laugh when I read a another photographer’s site and they are ranting and raving about investment and why you should make a deposit in their photo work. Most don’t even know the meaning of the word, and it would be more fitting to replace the word “investment” with the word “gamble,” because that is exactly what the photographer is doing in editing if they haven’t taken the right steps to ensure a professional product.

If you haven’t done so, this purchase will make the most dramatic increase to the quality and consistency of your work, even more than that big lens. Ya know, that lens with the red ring around the end of the barrel.

How To Calibrate

Simple. Buy a monitor calibration tool. This tool comes with both physical and software components. The hardware is required to provide the standardization that we seek, and it directly talks to software and makes the proper adjustments to your monitor. The calibration tool sits on your screen while the calibration software runs through a bunch of color and brightness scenarios. Hit ‘go’ and two minutes later your screen is properly calibrated. The hardest part was literally ordering the thing online.

A company called Datacolor makes a product called Spyder. There are a few different models, the only differences is the software that runs the calibration, with the physical calibrator tool being the same. You can pickup the Spyder Express for less than 100 bucks. This is what I have and does a fine job. I’ve used the pro models of the software and I think they are just gimmicks to get you to spend more money. The express model does a fine job.

Turn your computer on and wait 30 minutes before calibrating. This will allow the monitor to reach it’s regular operating levels. I don’t know if this wait time is even needed with the newer LED monitors, but I still follow this practice just to be sure. Besides, I’m going to be on my computer anyways…

Calibrate Often

Once you’ve purchased a Spyder, or like device, recalibrate your monitor every few months. A monitor’s presentation qualities shift with the age of the monitor. The most dramatic shifts will be in the first six months of a monitor’s life. The Spyder software can be set to remind you to recalibrate at designated intervals of time.

All Done

Now you can sit-back and relax, knowing your images are presented accurately, and your adjustments will present well in both the digital and print world.

All-In-One

I will always recommend a convertible, all-in-one reflector/diffuser product. This type of tool is first and foremost a diffuser at heart, with a white diffusion material making up the body of the tool. It also comes with covers or skins, whatever you want to call them, that fit over the diffuser. These covers come in a multitude of colors, but most common are silver and gold, which will produce a different kind of reflective quality to the light. All lighting situations may call for a different kind of “feel” to the light, so it’s nice to have options. One of the covers will most likely have an all black side, which can be used to block or subtract light.

Buying a convertible setup will cost more than if you were to just by a standalone diffuser or reflector, as you can probably guess, because there is more included with the product, but well worth it. Photography is just like the rest of life (surprise!), you are always tossed curveballs and asked to perform feats of photographic magic in some of the most ugly lighting conditions known to man. You often don’t know if you’ll need to reflect, diffuse, or subtract light, so a convertible tool is ideal.

Form Factor

Reflectors come in all shapes and sizes, and this can play a critical roll in their effectiveness. Most reflectors are constructed with a flexible wire frame that will allow it to breakdown into a convenient size for packing and storing. The rigidity of this wire frame should be well-understood before purchasing (read reviews). Most reflectors are circles or a circular-like form and are… well… pretty darn floppy. This can play in your favor as you can twist the reflector and bend it to concentrate or scatter light. I look for this quality in a reflector when I want one to toss on the ground in front of my subjects. Regardless of what’s on the ground, the reflector will kinda just wrap around objects. The floppier reflectors will also play fairly nicely if held straight up and down. They will immediately become a pain in your ass the second you try and hold this thing at any kind of angle. It doesn’t like it, and does what it does best… flop and bend. It’s a two-hand job to keep the thing steady with anything beyond horizontal and vertical positions, which means you need a dedicated assistant, using both hands, if you want to ask anything beyond “simple” from this type of reflector.

If you are looking for a reflector that will perform well with angles, being clamped to a stand (due to lack of hands on-set), or even allowing you to hold the reflector with one hand and using the camera with the other (not the best situation, but sometimes you gotta suck it up and deal), well… you are in luck. Lastolite makes a reflector/diffuser product called a “Tri Grip.” These tools are triangular in shape, have a dedicated handle on them, and make the task of holding reflectors exponentially easier. They are a more rigid construction, and really do hold their form, no flopping over when held out at an angle, even one-handed. They do their job well, whether they are held by a single hand or clamped to a light stand. These also breakdown into a small size for mobility. The rigidity of the reflector will not take kindly to bending, and will fight you to spring back into the triangle form it loves to be in. Below are links to all of these tools I’ve mentioned.

When You Don’t Have a Reflector Holding Assistant

Speaking of hanging reflectors off of stands, there are tools specifically designed to make this task a little easier. All of us photogs get stuck out on-location without an assistant from time to time when you are in desperate need of an extra pair of reflector-holding hands. Looks like mr. light stand just pulled double duty. Of course, you can use just about any clamp out there to McGyver your own assistant-less reflector solution, some more elegant than others. A lot of the times, I’ll just lean the reflector against a light stand for a slight reflector angle. The Tri Grip will be your best friend in this assistant-less situation, just affix this reflector to a light stand using any kind of clamp right on it’s designated handle, it’ll hold true. The Tri Grip’s floppier cousin will require a lot more work to coax it into playing nice. There are a lot of different solutions for the floppy guys, and you’ll find that it’s best to just try and use these in a vertical or horizontal position. I’ll link a couple here at the bottom of the post.

Here is your standard convertible circle reflector/diffuser:

• http://www.adorama.com/FPPR5142.html

Here is a Tri Grip (these come in different sizes):

• http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/418586-REG/Lastolite_LL_LR3696_TriFlip_8_in_1.html

Various reflector grip adapters for light stands:

• http://www.adorama.com/LSPRFB.html
• http://www.adorama.com/FPPRB.html
• http://www.adorama.com/LTPRB.html
• http://www.adorama.com/PARB5I1K.html
• http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/250256-REG/Delta_46072_Light_Stand_Arm_with.html

Don’t underestimate the effectiveness of a well-placed reflector. Sometimes is all a photo job requires, especially when mr. sun is out in full force. Sometimes is just easier to take a hint from the sun and use it’s lighting power to your advantage instead of fighting it. Here is an example, a shoot where I only used a big circle reflector for lighting. I used a gold reflector because I wanted a little more warmth in this series. It was shot mid-day. Click here for that shoot. For this shoot I also had a dedicated assistant holding the reflector just off-camera (required with the floppy circle type).

The Tri Grips are more expensive, but I tell you what… would you rather spend less money on a reflector that you can’t/hate to use, or spend a little more on one that is applicable and usable on your shoots. I do have both kinds, I use them all, and for different jobs. I keep my tri grip in the back of my car, just in case, for spontaneous shoots. Spontaneous usually translates to shooting alone (sans assistant), and I can get away with even holding the reflector myself if I have to.

Do some poking around, read buyer reviews before just picking one, and spend more for an all-in-one.

There are a number of different filter types out there, some for more generalized purposes, and some for very specific photo tasks. I will only be tackling the more general, widely-used filters in this post. So by no means am I covering the entire spectrum of what is available out on the market for filters.

Protection

There are many reasons photographers might be hunting for a filter, and unfortunately, sometimes it can be completely for the wrong reasons. Protection is one of the WRONG reasons to buy a filter. Green photographers will often seek-out a basic, clear filter for the simple purpose of protecting the front element of glass on their lens. If you are newer to photography, you might still be a little clumsy in handling your camera equipment, you might be overly concerned with dropping or scratching up the front element of your lenses. Here are my thoughts protecting the front or your lenses…

Filters should NOT be used for protecting your lens. Of course we are all on-board with wanting to keep the front of our lenses clean and untouched, but there are better ways to do this so that you are not compromising image quality by adding another layer of glass to your images. Use a lens hood for this purpose. Lens hoods extend well beyond the front of the lens, protect the lens from getting touched, banged, etc. A lens hood’s primary function is to reduce unwanted lens flares as a result from side/back light leaking into the lens, which also helps maximize your contrast and saturation levels, however, rarely do I think of hoods as help with this purpose, and you’ll find that they help WAY more in the damage control department. I use lens hoods 100% of the time, and my primary reason for using them IS protection, but it’s also nice the they are there to help block unwanted light.

If you are new to the game, you should have relatively entry-level gear (this is a good thing, as in the event you happen to scratch, drop, or otherwise damage a piece of gear, it is going to be much easier to accept you ruined a $100 lens rather than a $2000 lens, and replacement/repair costs will minimal). As you progress in photography, you’ll become more comfortable with the gear, handling it, and your risk of scratching, dropping/damaging equipment will decrease. Later down the road, your experienced hands will more accurately and confidently handle nicer, more expensive gear, but the same holds true – do not use filters for protection purposes, use hoods for that. The ONLY disclaimer I have to add to using filters for protection purposes is if you were going to use your camera in an extreme environment, like going into the desert or sticking it out your car window where a bug could smack the lens at 70mph. If you are going to purposefully put your camera in harms way, then sure, put a basic filter on for your reckless moments, and then take it off.

The Right Purpose

This information holds true with everything in life, and that is – ensure you have a good understanding of any filters you are using to maximize photo potential. This means knowing how each filter effects your images (both positively and negatively) so that you can make a call on when and how to use a particular filter. Filters are pretty easy to mount and unmount, so don’t think just because you walked out of the house that day with a filter on that it has to endure the entire day mounted to your lens. Worst case scenario, you mount the wrong filter to use for the wrong purpose, due to lack of understand what a particular filter’s true abilities are for. So let’s take a look at couple filters now.

UV/Haze Filter

The UV/HAZE filter is the first filter I think most people get wrangled into buying. This is a clear filter that is supposed to help with stray light and haze. This is the filter most people buy who are looking to add a layer of protection to their lens, as it does not effect the light entering the lens. In my opinion, these lenses are a waste of time and money, and I do not see any benefit this has over a lens hood. Again, if you are in an extreme environment where you know there is a good chance of something making direct contact with your lens, put one on for protection, but it’s about the only thing these are good for.

Polarizing Filter

Now here is a filter you should invest in. There is a bit of science behind this guy, but I’ll let you wiki the geeky details, and I will just get to the good parts for why you should own this filter. A polarizer works wonders by blocking certain angles of light from entering the lens, and by doing so, you can get the upper hand in many typical shooting situations.

If you shoot landscape photography… how do I put this simply… you are an idiot if you do not own this filter. A polarizer will add dramatic increases in color and contrast in skies, pull the reflections off of water, foliage, and other surfaces. By blocking these reflections, the true color and details of the objects will enter the lens, and not reflected light bouncing off of these objects (usually sunlight). You’ll see the biggest advantage in mid-day light, when the sun is high, but also when you’ll be seeing the biggest rob of contrast and saturation in your images. There’s a reason for that, because the sun’s light is bouncing off of everything, and you lose visibility of all of the colors because your eyes (or lens in this case) is seeing mostly reflected sunlight bouncing off of the objects. The photo at the top of the post was taken with a polarizer at almost noon (the worst time to take outdoor photographs). With the filter on, I was able to pull good color out of the ground and sky, and without the filter this image would be super bland.

This filter is handy in general with walk-around photographers, as we encounter reflections no matter where we go, and you are probably getting robbed of color in a lot of images because of reflections you are unaware of (and how dramatically they are robbing your photos of contrast and color). Ever want to take a photo of someone sitting in a car behind a window, or maybe you are walking down the street and see something cool in a store window and want to take an image of it. Usually without a filter, this image situation always fails, as your camera will only be able to “see” the reflected light on the surface of the window glass. With a polarizer you can completely filter-out this reflected light, and see into the window. The same is true with any other surface that is reflecting direct light, like water, plants, walls, whatever.

To effectively use a polarizer, first make sure that you are dealing with a polarized light source, like the sun. With the filter on your lens, look through the viewfinder and the scene you are about to photograph. Spin the filter and watch how the light entering the camera is effected. By rotating the filter, you are changing the direction of polarized light being filtered out of the lens. For example, if you are shooting a landscape and want that deep, dark blue sky, rotate the lens and watch the sky change. Spin and adjust a couple times until you’ve found the sweet spot. Polarizers are manually intensive, meaning you’ll need to adjust them just as much as you are recomposing various images. Remember, if you flip your camera from a landscape to a portrait framing, you’ve just turned your filter 90 degrees as well. Don’t think that you are done and will get the pictures you want by simply mounting the polarizer, it needs a lot of attention.

If you are working with flash lighting (which is not polarized) you will not be getting any benefit from a polarizer. Again, wiki this topic to form a better understanding of the details.

In my line of work, I am usually capturing portraits, but that doesn’t mean that I never use a polarizer. It can be a very complementary tool in my line of work. Often I’m on-location and shooting outdoors, and even though I am utilizing off-camera lighting, I’m often working with a skyline as a backdrop. So I’m working with both flash lighting (non-polarized) and the sun (polarized). The polarizer will not effect the light falling on my subject, but definitely will on my background which is being lit by the sun. If I want to add contrast and saturation to my background, I’ll add the polarizer. Below are a couple images I’ve recently captured where I’ve taken advantage of a polarizer (for both color in the sky and make the mountain “pop” in the background).

Without the polarizer, these particular images would not have the same look and feel, in regards to the background (which happened to be extremely important in this shoot).

As far as a general use filter, I think a polarizer is the one to own. There are just so many practical uses where it can enhance your photos ranging from barely to dramatically.

Here is a wiki page with some great examples of leveraging a polarizer (click here).

Neutral Density Filter

Think of a neutral density (ND) filter as a pair of sunglasses for your lens. It’s sole purpose is to knock light down as it enters your lens. It’s called “neutral” because it does not otherwise effect the light entering the lens via color and manipulation. ND filters are measured in “stops,” a term all photographers should be familiar with (a stop of light is the equivalent of doubling or cutting the light in half). In this case, an ND filter always subtracts stops of light from entering the lens. ND filters can be acquired in single or multiple-stop increments (you can stack ND filters on top of each other to cut more light from the lens). You can also buy variable-stop ND filters, which can be adjusted by spinning the filter, this is the route I chose to go. My ND filter has a 2-8 stop range, which is adjusted by spinning the filter.

You might be asking yourself when an ND filter would come in handy, as most of us are always looking for ways to add MORE light to our photographs. One of the key areas where they can be utilized is long exposure photography. Sure, long exposures are easy to snag when it’s nighttime, or at dusk, but what if you want the effects of long exposure in the middle of the day? ND filter to the rescue. What if you want to shoot a low aperture (like F4), resulting in a shallow DOF, but it’s so bright out that you are being forced to stop down to F16? Slap on a couple stops of ND to make it happen. There are other occasions, like in my portrait example above, that you are trying to balance off-camera lighting with ambient, and ND filters can help out there as well.

There is one variation of the ND filter that is worth mentioning, and that is a graduated ND filter. The graduated version has a gradient fade, so that it’s darker on one end and fades to a lighter tint on the other (much like a pair of sunglasses that have a faded tint, with more shading on the top and less on the bottom). These can be best utilized where you have a hot spot in your image, however, you want the entire image to be exposed evenly. Ex. is a typical sunset photograph, say… on a beach. You are exposing the photograph for the sunset, but normally this would leave the water and beach area of the photograph super dark because it is not nearly as bright as the sky you are exposing for. Add the graduated ND filter, with the darker portion on top. This will knockout some of the light of the sunset, which will allow you to get a better balanced exposure for the entire scene.

There Are Others

There are lots of specialized lens filters out on the market, however, I think the ones I’ve covered above will fit most, if not all, of your general photography needs. There are color filters, warming filters, cooling filters, the list goes on. As your photographic journey matures, you may find yourself looking for more specialized filters to fit your very specialized needs.

The digital age has given us the ability to do away with a lot of these specialized filters because of the power we now have in post software. Of course, you want to do the job right at time of capture, and I believe that the filters recommended above will answer that call, manipulating light accordingly, while many of the other filters available can be properly replicated in digital post production. For example, we don’t need to limit our camera by setting it to take a black and white exposure, when you can simply take the color photo in post and turn it black and white. This leaves you with the flexibility of both a color and B&W photo. The same holds true with a lot of specialized filters out there. Why use a warming filter when you can warm the photo in post? Gone are the days of film, and digital fortunately frees us of a lot of the at-capture necessities.

Minimize Filter Usage

Limit filter use to ONLY when they are serving a direct benefit to your image, and take them off when they are not required. You pay a lot of money for really nice lenses and the glass elements that are designed in them. It’s very important to keep in-mind that adding an extra layer of glass will only degrade your image quality. It’s a give-take scenario, degrading overall image quality by introducing another layer of glass for the light to passthrough, versus the light altering benefits from the filter. Keep this in-mind when you are shopping for filters as well. When it comes to that that $1000+ pro lens you have… are you going to buy a $20 or $200 filter? Your image will only be as strong as it’s weakest element, and we don’t have to guess what that weakest link is if you settled for that $20 special. You shouldn’t get super paranoid about filter glass quality and it’s degrading effects on your final image, however, it’s something to consider when you are shopping and really need something that will produce the best image possible.

Your subject matter in photography should be your guide in filter usage. There is no universal lens filter to make all of your images better, so only use them for their intended purpose, and make the most of out of the light in your world.

Some details about things I cover in the video:

Hot shoe flash – those flash lights you can buy that mount in the hot shoe of your camera (hence the name). They can do much more than just sit on top of your camera. There is a huge movement with even high profile photographers using these in their everyday work, so don’t underestimate them.

Wireless Trigger – a method used to trigger the off-camera lighting at the same time you click the shutter, providing flash lighting for your exposure.

TTL – Essentially a way for you to shoot off-camera lighting without needing a bunch of knowledge about lighting. Think of it as the automatic mode of the lighting world, much like the way all of the automatic modes on your camera help novices take photos. Good for people who are lacking in lighting knowledge, or if you are working in a hurried environment. For real control over lighting, advanced knowledge is required and manual light control is the way to go.

Infrared – The technology the hot shoe flashes have right-out-of-the-box. The same tech that your TV remotes use, it’s a short-range technology that allows your camera and flashes to “talk” to each other. Not only does it accomplish triggering your flashes wirelessly, they also transmit TTL from the camera to lights on-the-fly, making it a very dynamic lighting solution. IR does have a few flaws. Just like your TV remote, it requires direct line-of-sight from camera to light. It’s inconsistent, and it gets worse the further the distance is between the camera and light. Bright daylight also can play havoc with the IR tech. If you are not in bright sunlight, and you are usually shooting within 20 feet of your lights, AND you are in direct line-of-sight, it works pretty good.

Optical – One line-of-sight method I did not mention is optical, meaning a light trigger. Just like IR, it works on line-of-sight, so your lighting setup will need to accommodate that requirement. It will work great in a close range, smaller sized rooms, or where the light has surfaces to bounce off of. It will struggle in very bright daylight, and cut down the range of this trigger. It can communicate TTL just like IR as well.

PocketWizard – The professional standard for wireless triggering in photography. Instead of using IR to trigger lights, you are using radio transmission. It’s consistent, long-range, and still retain the capabilities of using TTL between the camera and hot shoe lights. The downside – over 200 bucks a pop, and you need two of them.

Sync Cable – A cable that attaches from camera to flash, which does not carry TTL info, just a simple signal to trigger the flash to fire when the shutter button is pressed.

Cheap Radio Triggers – I briefly hit on a “cheap radio trigger” solution. This is actually what I started using when I got into wireless triggers, scored my set for 40 bucks. These are typically no-name devices you can pickup from various websites. Do not carry TTL info, just a signal to trigger, much like a sync cable, just minus the wires.

Additional Notes:

In order for TTL capabilities to work, you’ll need to buy the same brand hot shoe flashes as your camera, they do not intermingle (at least at the time of writing this post). The little white loop you see hanging off of my pocket wizards are just strings I’ve tied to them so I can hang them off light stands.

Identifying the Needed Upgrades

“Upgrading” can mean something beyond equipment. What if you are at a point where you are conducting photo shoots with lots of lighting? That’s a lot of equipment packing, setup, massaging lighting issues during the shoot, and finally packing back-up. Maybe “upgrading” is getting an assistant to increase efficiency of the physical photo shoot. Truth be told, any well-executed portraiture photography beyond pure live event shooting normally calls for light manipulation, whether that be a simple reflector or a $20,000 light setup. Extra hands to help are always SUPER nice to have around and dramatically decrease photo session times. Decreasing shoot times can be looked at in two different ways – it increases your per-hour production, or it allows you to fit in more shoots. Either way, you are making more money or freeing up more time for personal leisure.

New lenses are always being drooled-over by photo gear nuts. Do you work a lot of evening/indoor photo gigs? Still shooting low to mid-grade lenses and having to jack-up your ISO because your glass isn’t fast enough? Upgrade your glass. Your clients are paying you right? Invest in them, deliver a higher quality product via photo with lower ISO’s (which equal cleaner files from lower ISO photos from faster glass). Starting to get more product photography jobs? Maybe it’s time for you to dive-in and invest in a macro lens, instead of having to crop your standard lens photos to get tight shots (which effectively kills your resolution).

Buying a second camera body. I always laugh at the thought of people buying an extra camera body purely for the sake of having a backup (I hear it all the time). How unreliable is your gear? Maybe it’s time to upgrade your primary body instead… Now, I will say this in the defense of this theory – Things can go wrong, so in VERY rare cases, a backup might come in handy for a pure backup purpose, but don’t shell-out for that reason alone. And I’m sure that unless you are getting paid big-time or shooting weddings, the situation of a camera failure popping-up can mean an easy reschedule of a photo shoot and clients will understand (after all, you are getting paid a couple hundred bucks, if that). Now, if you are getting paid to fly around the country and making thousands on a shoot, ya, your clients have invested heavily in you, so you better have respectfully invested equally on your end of things. HOWEVER, a second camera body is a good idea if you plan on using it regularly. I have two bodies and I use them both ALL the time. The biggest reason – each body having a different lens mounted, one wide, one telephoto. In this situation, my portrait shoots will go quicker because I’m not having to juggle lenses onto one body while my clients wait, I just pickup the other rig and keep shooting. In event shooting, this setup is priceless. With a camera hanging on each shoulder, you can go from super wide shots to telephotos across a large room. People at events don’t wait for a photographer to change lenses or walk across the room, and candid moments are lost. Greater capability with multiple bodies can almost turn you into two photographers, increase your photo variety, making you a more effective and desirable photog to hire for events.

All of the dizzying amount of various photo accessories can be another giant undertaking of upgrading as well. I covered the camera bag in a dedicated post a while back, which is very important (click here for that post). Have you bought more gear than your bag holds, and so you are forced to leave some lenses or other things behind? I HATE when I’m in a situation where I’m left saying, “I wish I would have brought  ____.” There are a stupid amount of lighting accessories. Lights themselves, stands, battery packs, light modifiers, things to trigger lights, gels, the list goes on. Shooting a lot of off-camera lighting outside mid-day and need a more powerful light to tame the sun? Invest in a studio strobe.

The biggest bottleneck in business workflow I think is the most overlooked by beginning and mid-level experienced photogs, and that is the computer side of the business. We can all say that we wish we had a faster computer, but you might not realize how badly it is slowing your business down. If you are spending more than a couple hours in post for a general family portrait or senior photo or head shot photo session, you are doing it wrong. And by the “the process,” I mean from import, edit, export, archiving, and washing your hands of a photo shoot. You have some major leaks in your digital workflow if this is surpassing 2-3 hours (and that’s on the slow end). Some leaks might just be you, meaning your experience and knowledge of the entire post processing workflow is still spinning-up, getting faster at making your photo selects, etc. It’ll take a year or two before that really gets snappy and become second nature. With this in-mind, your computer and software choices may not yet be a bottleneck, however, I promise once you have some miles under your belt, the more you’ll find yourself waiting on a computer to crunch numbers. Two huge things to look at – computer hardware, photo management software (I’m not going to cover the software end, as I wrote a post about that, which you can read by clicking here). Is your computer more than a couple years old? Realize that computers made today are over 4 times more powerful in both CPU and graphic performance than computers made just two years ago. Not a big deal? Think again. Let’s go back to that high output idea again. If I had to put a number on it, I can easily say I push out over 3,000 images on average per month. That’s importing, viewing, selecting, editing, and exporting at a minimum 3,000 images a month. Let’s say that with your current computer setup that your average time dedicated per-image is 60 seconds (from import to edit to export). That’s 50 hours for one month, just sitting in front of your computer, pumping out photos. The time consuming part of your post processing will be in the editing. How long does it take for your computer to pull-up the next image, for edits to snap into effect, and for exporting? If you are waiting on your computer to do a lot of these things, you have a GIANT leak in your post workflow, ’cause remember, we are talking about this wait time multiplied by thousands of images per month. Speeding up the process per image by just 10 seconds shaves 8 HOURS of work off of your month… a full work day (if you use the 3,000 image scenario), and that’s for just shaving off 10 seconds. That’s a free day, take it off, or… use it to book more work and make more money. My last computer upgrade was a good leap, effectively doubling my overall computing potential. This means that I could cut the proposed 50 hours in half to 25. 25 hours a month, I have the ability to get back. That’s huge, right? That’s a part-time job worth of hours, every month. How juicy does that computer upgrade look now? A little more justifiable? More like business sabotage if you ignore it. I just gave you a scenario that paid for a new computer in the first month of owning it (a really really nice computer). The software end is equally important, especially if you are not yet using software designed for mass photo management/editing. Read the post linked up above if you are not doing so yet.

Even the seemingly “small” upgrades can have significant impacts on improving your business operations, well beyond your expectations. If you find yourself saying “I wish ____” over and over in a certain area of your business workflow, that should be a giant red flag. The level in which you address your bottlenecks should be relative to your current state of business and finances. Sometimes you gotta upgrade/improve the more dull, less exciting aspects of the business that are the last place you want to spend money, but are areas that obviously should take priority over other, more fun areas you’d rather tend to. For example, billing and invoicing… oh boy, what fun, right? Spending an evening researching different billing software options and dropping 4o bucks on the one that best fits you can end up saving you a ton of time, all while keep your billing, expenses, and financial accountability all in-check with minimal effort.

Buy Good Equipment, Get Good Resale At Right Times

A helpful strategy of upgrading equipment is that you can help shave some of the cost by off-loading the old gear that the new gear is replacing. Upgrading from a mid-level lens to a pro-series that covers the same focal range? Sell the mid-grade to lower the overall cost to you for upgrading. The lens market is pretty steady, as lens manufacturers will only make new generations of the same lens every 5-10 years. Chances are you can get 60-85% of what you originally paid for a lens if you sell it, sometimes more (if you’ve taken good care of it). Lens prices fluctuate, it’s weird. For example, right now, lens prices are WAY up because of the recovering state of Japan, where the bulk of the lenses are made, which has constrained supply lines. I could sell most of my lenses now for more than I bought them years ago.

Computers can have great resell too, especially if it’s a Mac (sorry PCs, the truth stings). Just like a car, where a model with 90,000 miles seems pretty reasonable will sell well, where a car with 120,000 miles on it will not sell nearly as well. So there is that sweet spot, and keeping your ear to the ground as far as where computer technology is, you can get really good resale on your computer. I recently sold a two year old MacBook Pro for $1,200, which sold the day after I listed it. I paid 2,200 for it originally, which happens to be the same price as the new one I bought, so I’m only out $1,000 for getting a new mac that doubled my digital efficiency. I’m keeping the digital end of my business very current by only having to invest $500 a year on computer hardware.

Camera bodies will sell almost as well as lenses, that is until the next model comes out, which is much faster than the lens market. Camera body cycles can be as quick as one year to as long as 3 years. Once the next generation of that model drops so will the price on the old one.

Invest In You, Invest In Your Clients

I’ve had a few photographers ask me what they should charge for photo shoots. They’ve usually been students of mine in a workshop, so I know where they are (experience and equipment-wise), so my simple answer to them is, “whatever you think is a reasonable price for your time investment,” as they have been photographers who are just jumping into the game, and financial/gear investment is low so that really doesn’t get equated into things. They have other jobs, and at this point the photo gig is something they love and they are working towards building businesses. This is a great place to be, as it’s not a “putting food on the table” situation for them, and it can be a much more casual decision, and any extra dough they score from a shoot is icing on the cake. They also understand that at present time their investments in experience, knowledge, equipment, and photo business finances are low… right where their prices should be. This plays in their favor though, as low price points make them desirable if their work is good enough.

I don’t believe photography pricing is decided on how a photographer was feeling one day when they woke up, “hey, I should be charging ___ per hour, just because I think I’m awesome!” It’s something that should be weighed on numerous avenues. How much do you charge to conduct a photo shoot with entry-level experience, low-end equipment, no lighting gear, no legit studio, along with a number of other investments other photographers have made? I sure hope that you are not competing in prices with someone who has 5+ years and made considerable investments. If you are pricing the same with a seasoned photog who produces superior work, will those same people come back to you? Proper investment (in a mutual way) will ensure happy repeat clients.

Now that I have talked your ear off about how important having the newest gear is kickass, it isn’t all about gear. It’s about reasonable investments and where they make sense. You want to produce better work, charge more for your time, get better clients – it’s a process. Gear doesn’t define you as an artist and your production of creative works. It’s a snowball process. I started, as we all do, with low-end gear, and photographed people for free or next to nothing. I knew that going out and buying a bunch of uber pro gear wasn’t going to make me an amazing photographer. No, that would come with the experience, and newer, better gear would have the potential to make my product a bit better in overall quality. As my experience, level of work, and desire for a creating a better, more efficient product hit higher levels, so did my level of clientele, gear, experience, and prices. I can walk away from a photo shooting happy with knowing that my clients think they got an amazing deal, I’m happy with my price points, and the level of work exceeds expectations. If I’m going to be on one end of the investment scale or the other, I’d rather feel like I’ve invested well beyond what I’m charging clients, rather than feeling like I’m over-priced for my level of work and capabilities.

It should go without saying that you shouldn’t read this post and be thinking you should be dropping all kinds of cash to “upgrade” your biz. Truth be told, we all could use improvements in just about every corner of all of our businesses, and we all have a wish list. Photography isn’t a professional that increases your worth by throwing more money at it. It’s simply about identify bottlenecks and hurdles in your business and then forming plans to clean them up. Investments should be made across the board, and on equal measures. Your business will only be as strong as it’s weakest link.

Bonus Points

Sure, it’s really easy to buy a camera and overnight you wave a magic wand and you are now a photographer with a business and a Facebook page, right? For vets, this is an obvious, but for you newcomers, it’s a really really good idea to have a business license. Not only does it make your photo outfit legit, it opens up another reason for investing…. tax breaks. By the way, it’s illegal to conduct a business without a license. I think it’s like 15 bucks a year to register your biz with the state, and takes like 5 minutes online. Plus if you do any business to business work, the other business will require it for their tax purposes. Anyways, back to the tax breaks… You can write-off all of these toys you are buying for your registered business (if you file business taxes in tandem with your personal). There is a chance that the first year you conduct business that your expenses will be greater than your profits, which means big brother owes you, booyah. Just remember to keep all the receipts. Use your car to drive to a shoot? That’s a write-off, mileage and gas (you didn’t know that buying a car was an upgrade for your biz did you!).

If you have any questions on upgrading aspects of a photography business, feel free to comment below or send me a message from the contact page.

I think that the people this post will help most are those who have recently bought their first DSLR, who probably have a kit lens and maybe one more lens (most likely a mid-quality longer zoom). So you are juggling two lenses, you are going on some adventures and want to have them both with you, yet you want to pack/protect your investment. Others might have been in the game for awhile and you’ve caught a serious gear bug, and you have a lens/accessory infestation. There are bags for you and your “issue,” and we’ll cover that as well (I fall into this category). Some of you may choose to have multiple bags, one big guy that fits all your gear, and another smaller bag for your wandering adventures.

Protection

Pretty straightforward, but something we should still cover, after all, you are buying a bag to both wrangle all of your equipment, yet protect it from all the packing’ and bumps along the way. It’s always good advice to be in-person to touch, feel, and get an idea of what various bags offer in terms of protection for your first good bag purchase. Once you’ve bought a bag or two, a detailed set of images of a certain bag while shopping online can give you all the info you need coupled with existing bag buying experience. Will you just be taking short trips around town, going on a lot of airplane flights, or maybe facing wet/nasty weather? Answering these questions will determine the outer shell of the bag, which will prevent water getting in, or getting crushed in an over-head storage bin, etc. Hard shell, soft, and/or waterproof. Next step are the padding inside the bag. It’s important that all inside walls of the bag have plenty of firm cushioning, as well as the dividing compartment walls. This will prevent shock damage from dropping a bag, a rough car ride, etc., and keep your various pieces of equipment from knocking into each other. Camera bodies, lenses, and other accessories should fit snug, velcro’d in, or zipped-up to prevent further chaos in your bag while on the move. For these reasons, I wouldn’t try and convince yourself that your old school book bag will do the job. You’ll want plenty of cushion and a good fit.

Size and Compartment Versatility

While both size and versatility could be two different categories, they are closely related due to the fact that most bags are very adjustable. You usually have the liberty of moving all of the separating dividers inside the bag to fit your specific needs for varying camera and lens sizes. I have yet to buy a bag that I didn’t completely rearrange the velcro operated dividers right off the bat. Size of the bag usually directly relates to the complexity of the compartments and the number of combinations you can arrange all of the dividers. Smaller bags have only a couple ways of arrangement possibilities, while larger bags can be a puzzle. Compartment versatility usually isn’t an issue, since most are totally flexible, so it’s usually the sheer storage volume you should concern yourself with. Gear can be arranged to fit width-wise, height-wise, or length, so think three-dimensionally. Sure, you can lay your lenses on their sides, but can you get more efficient with space if the lenses stood-up? Lots of combos with bags, so look at the bags height, length, and width.

Bag size and space is all relative. Do you have a small entry level DSLR and a few of the smaller low-to-mid-grade lenses? You can probably stuff all of those into a fairly small bag (like the one pictured below). That same bag would only hold a single larger camera body with a pro lens on it (see below as well). Once you start upgrading to larger camera bodies and lenses, that space disappears faster than you can say “crap, I bought the wrong bag.” (which is what we are trying to avoid).

A shoulder strap, mid-sized bag. My first bag, and still handy for some occasions. Plenty of pockets for all your misc. accessories. One large, easy access flap to get your hands quickly on any gear. It also has straps to attach a tripod.

It is perfect for a single camera body and a couple small to mid-sized lenses, even room for a couple hot shoes. Pictured here with 3 lenses fitting snuggly (a 50mm on body).

As you can see, this same bag can only hold on large camera body and pro series lens. I squeaked-in a hot shoe as well.

Foresight, especially in the “space” category, is your friend. Are you lusting for that bigger, faster, pro series lens? Chances are if you have any disposable income whatsoever, you’ll find some way to justify the purchase, and you’ll have a 3 lb., foot-long lens now fighting for space in your bag before you know it (along with a big smile on your face). So, let’s plan ahead a little bit. I know, it’s not cool to buy a bag which is holding all of your equipment and it’s only half full, it’s like a dare to make you go buy more. Truth be told, I don’t know many lovers of photography who only stopped at one or two lenses. This is where I give you the “I told you so” line. If you are really diggin’ photography, and it’s in your definite future, buy a bag that will grow with your collection/addiction. So light-shooting hobbyists – a small to mid-sized bag will suit you fine. The gear freaks, go big, something that can hold 3-5 pro lenses and a couple bodies (if you like to take all of your gear on shoots). All legit bags, no matter the size, should come with a set of pockets to tuck your memory cards and batteries in. It’s the volume and compartment arrangements that should be the focus.

Size is great but it can work against you. For example, my large, gotta-have-everything-on-me bag is JUST small enough to squeeze into an overhead storage bin on a plane. In fact, if a particular flight staff wanted to be jerks, they could easily force me to check it (and that would be an “um, hell no!”). Some bag manufacturers will praise their models for being ideal for flight travel and things alike, so that’s always a bonus if you are shaky on it’s limit of travel adaptation, so read item descriptions.

Weight and Comfort

Obviously bag weight will directly translate to the length of time it’s comfortable to pack. The way the bag straps onto you will determine a proper weight/comfort level as well (whether that be a single shoulder, a backpack style, or even a cross-chest sling). My large bag… it’s 60 lbs when loaded up (it actually has seatbelt material for the strap, pictured below.), not going to be going on any long walks with that bad boy. It’s designed for short walks to and from the car at a shoot location. I have smaller bags for this reason, ones I can take on hikes and not feel like I have a hippo hanging off my shoulder. Look for bags that have nice, big shoulder straps/pads. It’ll help distribute the weight of the bag across a larger area over your shoulder/back, and help against the feeling of straps cutting into you. Even a 5 pound gear bag will start to wear on you if the straps suck.

My fit-everything-bag. Big, heavy, and a pain in the ass to pack around, but I know that I have everything with me. Oh, the lens case you see zip-tied to the top handle holds all of my lens hoods. Ugly but functional. This BARELY fits on an airplane.

It not only has width and length, it has depth, so there are actually layers of equipment in the bag. I have arranged the compartments so that it holds two camera bodies (with lenses attached), 3 hot shoes, and 9 big lenses. It has a TON of pockets for all the little things, even a dedicated pocket to hold a laptop. IF I loaded this thing to full capacity, it'd weigh 80+ lbs.

Active Access to Bag

By this I mean if you are wearing the bag, do you have to take it all the way off, set on the ground, and unpack a bunch of stuff to do a lens change? When I do walk-around shoots, I usually just carry my camera in my hands since shots are pretty frequently (and keep spare lenses in the bag), but if you are only taking shots every 15 mins or whatever, you might wanna keep bagging and unbagging your gear. Maybe there is bad weather or you are in a muddy place where you can’t set your bag down – a cross-chest sling or a single shoulder bag would be best for you frequent gear accessors. It’ll allow you to access the bags without having to spend a lot of time taking them off or having to set them down in a not-so-clean area. These types of bags usually have easy access flaps that make all of the bag compartments accessible with a single flip.

Cross-chest strap, mid-sized bag (about the same capacity of the should strap mid-size shown above). Easy access flap unzipped to provide access to main bag cavity. Smaller compartment above which is just large enough to squeeze a hot shoe into.

Firm, yet comfortable strap. Plenty of padding on back of bag as well. This is my hiking bag, which allows me to swing it around for easy access, not having to set the bag down.

Photography Interests

What will you be photographing? I know, that’s a tricky one, ’cause so many of you shoot everything under the sun. By asking yourself this question, you will answer most, if not all of the sections covered above, along with providing foresight into future lens/camera purchases, which then will directly relate back to all of your bag needs (hopefully resulting in a wise bag choice). The more you shoot the more you’ll start to settle into one or a set of areas in photography, which will then drive your specific future gear purchases. Most of us will be pretty fairly standard with wide to mid-range zoom lens needs, while wildlife photogs, for example, could be looking at some pretty long glass. Use a tripod often? Some bags come equipped with straps to accommodate a tripod.

Buy What Makes Sense, Not What’s On-sale

It should be obvious at this point, but truly consider these factors before purchasing. If your first criteria for finding the “right” bag is looking at what is on sale, you are not thinking too clearly. There are a few things in life you can easily get away with skimping on, and this is not one of them. You and your camera bag will be going on many journeys together, so invest wisely so that your gear stays safe and you stay comfortable.

Before I get into the meat of this topic, I want to thank Alice for entertaining my “frustrated photo editor” photo concept for this blog post (pictured above). I can say it’s the first time I’ve spent an hour to make a photo just for a blog post image.

The greatest (and unfortunately worst in some cases, you know what I mean) thing to happen to photography was the transition to digital photo sensors (digital photography). A close second – photo management software. No, I’m not talking about photoshop. Photoshop is an amazing tool, people who spend enough time in it can become digital wizards and make your head spin with endless manipulation techniques. Sorry, this post isn’t about attempting to impress you with how many ways you can take a chainsaw to your images in graphic design software. I’m going to be strictly talking about software for real-world, every day working photographers with a workload which turns-out thousands of edited images a month. If you haven’t heard of Aperture or Lightroom, I’m going to guess your workload isn’t exactly hitting thousands of images every month (cause you would have sought this solution out by now). However, you’re probably starting to take a lot of photos as you work more, the momentum and number of your photos will snowball, and you need a plan of attack on quite a few levels so that you can stay on top of the game.

The role of a photographer changed the second cameras went digital. We are no longer just photographers capturing light, sending rolls of film in for development. We now need to be proficient in a dizzying number of digital-oriented skills in-order to compete in a very over-saturated field. In my opinion, every aspect of a digital photographer’s job is equally important. After all, you are only as strong as your weakest link. The education and experience in light capturing is an obvious, but it doesn’t stop there. This skill (the ability to capture your subject and light well), amazingly the one that SHOULD define you as a “photographer,” no longer… well… is the only thing that defines you as a good photographer. Many will argue that it does, and I would say that it IS 95% of what makes a photographer great, DEFINITELY the separating factor from the sea of others. That other 5%, it’s a small part (the editing process knowhow), but a critical cornerstone of the process which ensures a photographer’s job is completed professionally from end-to-end. Without a long-term plan for that last 5%, well… it’s like owning Ferrari, but not knowing how to put fuel in the thing after the tank goes dry. The car is an engineering marvel, with all the potential to wipe the rest of the competition, but without fuel, it’s not worth a darn to anyone. And when I say “long-term” I mean just that. I’m not talking about a post processing plan that will successfully get you through one or two days, or even a month of photo shoots. I’m talking about years of consistent photo shoots, terabytes of image data you’ll need to import, organize, edit, and archive. It’s SUPER easy for image management to get out of control when the foundation for your post production process is not solid. Say you have a light load, maybe 40 shoots in the year, so you have a pretty good pile of images stored away. What happens when a client from a year ago calls you up looking for a photo? Is that an all-day task or 20 minutes of your time? That’s just one situation of many that can pop up.

Now, without getting into the nitty-gritties of editing styles, I want to talk a little about the only piece of software a successful, full-time photographer will need to get the job done, from import to finished exported photo. Software that will allow a single photographer to shoot thousands of images a month, not spend the rest of their waking life on the computer, stay organized, and keep photos backed-up safely (click here for blog post on solid backup hardware). I’m talking about shooting more, editing less, and improving consistency in your photo product. Sound like a dream? Well, it doesn’t have to be a dream any more. I’m talking about software often referred to as “all-in-one” or “photo management” solutions. The big two are Aperture and Lightroom (I’ll post links below to the software pages so you can get all the details). These pieces of software have a TON of functionality, but I’m going to only spend time on the ones that I feel make this software the best digital friend a photographer could have.

A disclaimer here – I use Apple products, and I use Aperture, so I will refer to these kind of software solutions by the name Aperture for the sake of time at this point forward. It in no way should this be interpreted that Aperture is better than other similar solutions, it’s simply the one I chose to go with.

Photo Management

I’ll admit it, by default I’m not the most organized person in general. I’ll let some dishes stack up in the sink, some clothes flung about the house, and my work desk can get a bit scary at times. I can handle this at times in my personal life, but NOT in my photography business. Organization is key, especially when you start talking about big, scary numbers that go well past the thousands. I can’t try and kid myself, if 500 images get imported off my memory card and are not organized directly on-the-spot, they will never get organized. Enter my digital maid….

Before Aperture, importing photos to your computer meant dragging the images from your memory card to a folder (or set of folders) that you organized yourself on the computer. It was up to you to organize your photos, the folder structure, and naming convention. In other words… a pain in the ass. If you still “organize” this way, I don’t know how you do it if you have any kind of reasonable workload. Respect goes out to you for dedicating the rest of your life to organizing and stressing-out over file management (that would be sarcasm…). Those days are gone, if you didn’t know this already.

Aperture manages all of your photos, much like iTunes manages all of your music. With Aperture, photo management is a breeze. Plug your memory card in, Aperture will automatically ask to import your photos, and if you want them in an existing or new photo project. It can even apply preset image edits at import, saving your even more time. You organize your photos further in Aperture by making organizational units called “projects.” Think of projects like a playlist in iTunes (maybe that you’d make for a specific band you like). I create a new photo project for every shoot that I do with the date and client name. The beauty of managing my projects on this smaller scale becomes apparent after I’m all done editing and exporting a client’s images. What do I do with that photo project now that I’m all done with it? Well, Aperture can export that project in a single file form, and you can export that to an external HD you use for backups. This stuffs all of the photos from a single shoot into one file, one location that I can find, and I’m not sorting through an endless set of files. You can then call on that single project file at any time, open it back up in your Aperture application, or even transfer it to another computer with Aperture, and all your edits are intact, just like you left them. For me, photo projects only live on my main computer for a month or two before they must be exported to my backup drives, for the sake of clearing space on my computer. My average photo shoot hovers around 10 gigs of space, with some larger projects pushing 80 gigs in size. HD space on my computer is filled and cleared at dizzying rates, like the people processed through the DMV. Your photo workload and space might allow you to organize your photos by month or even by year if you only shoot rarely. That’s all up to you, it’s a trial and error path you gotta take to figure out what organization works best for you and your available HD space.

Aside from the easy way to sort, export, and import photo projects, there are a TON of ways to organize and find images that you have loaded into Aperture. You can create smart organizing for your photos by rating, keywords, dates, etc. you can sort and organize your photos as easy as it is to search your iTunes for a song. A TON of power here that I don’t think people fully appreciate. The cleverness of the photo management end of Aperture saves my butt more than I’d like to admit, and makes it a key component in streamlining my biz. The management of my files from import to exporting of the project for archiving is a gigantic time saver, and lets me sleep easy at night.

This post is going to be long enough as it is, so I’m going to try to keep my points short, and I’m acknowledging that I’m doing the photo management portion of this a giant disservice by not ranting for another 5 pages about how awesome it is. It’s something you have to experience and work with for awhile to truly appreciate and understand how great it is and exactly how many ways you can sort your innumerable amount of images. Imagine, if you can, what it was like before iTunes was created for music management. Maybe most of you didn’t give digital music a go before iTunes was created… well, there’s a reason for that (it was a pain in the ass, no surprise). Just like iTunes for music, I couldn’t imagine being a photographer without Aperture, and it’s thanks to this powerful organization.

Editing

The editing side of Aperture has a number of advantages over your standard graphic/photo design apps out there. It’s a non-destructive, present applying, batch editing/exporting machine.

First off, it’s a non-destructive editing environment. What does that mean? It means that while you edit a photo in Aperture, you never really “touch” the original file. Aperture makes an alias copy of the image which you make edits to. The edits can be changed or even undone completely at any point in time. I can go back, open a photo project from 3 years ago, and remove any and all edits from a file, the original file is still there, untouched.

The editing controls are simple, easy to understand, and can be manipulated by dragging dials or manual number inputs. It’s natively ready to handle RAW image files, and excels and leveraging RAW file editing flexibility. A pretty robust set of editing tools can be found in Aperture, most tools that any photographer will need with doing general edits.

Another feature I use ALL the time is batch edits. Talk about a huge time saver! Let me explain what I mean by batch edits. Most of my photo shoots are in a very controlled environment, meaning I’m using lighting 90% of the time, so my lighting conditions are pretty static. This means that my photos from shot to shot will be very consistent. So say I start editing a studio photo shoot. I work on the first image – getting the white balance, exposure, contrast levels, etc all where I like them, ending with a finished image I’m happy with. I then can tell Aperture to lift the edits from that image and apply them to a group of images. So if I just shot 200 photos in the studio, I only had to edit one and apply those edits to the rest! I do go through the rest and spot-check for small variations, but the brunt of my work is already done. Are the people who are reading this who are only familiar with editing in software like Photoshop feeling their jaws drop at this moment? If you are an event or purely natural light photographer, this feature may not be as powerful for you, as your lighting conditions don’t really fall under the “consistent” category, but definitely still useful.

Aperture does have a lot of editing capabilities built-in, however, for those people seeking additional functionality there are third-party plugins available to add additional editing functionality. I have a couple of these.

After getting familiar with the rating, sorting, and editing sides of Aperture, you can import, edit, and export a photo shoot of 200 images in an hour if you have a few editing miles under your belt. That’s right, I just said editing a 200 image shoot in an hour. That’s sorting out the duds, picking your favs, editing them, and exporting.

Exporting

This section shouldn’t be a shocker since the exporting functionality leverages the same kind of power you’ve read about in the earlier sections above. Back in the day, you had to painfully open, edit, and export images individually. How long would that take with 200 photos? I don’t even want to think about it. In Aperture (after you are done editing your group of images, which you probably batch edited), you can select all of the images you desire to export and then enter the export menu. Here you’ll see a bunch of default exporting file formats and size which you can pick from, or you can make your own. Select desired export present and hit ok. That’s it, 200 images ready to deliver to the client. This kind of efficiency not only allows you to work faster, but since it doesn’t take you as long to do your editing and exporting, you can now deliver more edited photos to your clients without it taking much more time.

Daunting Turned Piece-o-cake

None of the things I mention above, as far as getting the job done with single image editing, is not impressive or new to the world of photography. BUT, the ability to do all of these fairly basic processes and applying them to 200 images is. Photo management and batch processing is like hiring a couple people to work for you. This software alone is the way a photographer can work full-time, spending more time shooting clients and less time editing. More time shooting means more time making photos and billing clients, and again, less time hating your life editing all the time.

Applications like Aperture and Lightroom are legit, as in, don’t think that they can’t hold their own in the editing world. They are full-fledged photo editing applications. If you are out to create some fantasy land, where you want to photoshop your model onto a flying dragon… well, then you need something like photoshop. I’m not planning on air brushing any dragons into my photos anytime soon, so I’m happy with my one application solution for my business at this point in time. Again, this is a photographer software solution, not a graphic designer app.

Wrapping up a two-hour photo shoot doesn’t have to mean you should be getting that feeling in your gut when you realize that you will have to spend a full day editing in some clumsy application designed to handle one image at a time. Life isn’t that hard, not any more.

Disclaimer and Details

Now, I only just scratched the surface of what these amazing applications can do. I literally just touched on what I feel are the practical functions working photographers need in a software solution. I’m sure you are just as tired of reading this post as I am writing it, so I’m going to leave it at that. Please visit the site below which will fill you in on all the other countless features they have to offer.

Aperture – works only on Macs, you can download a free 30-day trial of the software.
http://www.apple.com/aperture/

Lightroom – works on both Macs and PCs, you can download a 30-day trial.
http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshoplightroom/ 

Speaking of variety, the mini sessions have been bringing just that. From a single person to the full family shoots, I’ve been shooting it all and at a few different locations. The kids always bring unexpected surprises. They are definitely a challenge, but a welcome one, because they provide hilarious expressions when they come out of their shell. Couple goofy ones I’ve taken over the last week in the post, along with a young man I captured down at Ruston Way. Plenty of bloggin’ to come on that later down the road.

On the tech front (for you fellow photogs), I did some firmware updates on both my 5DmkII and 7D. Firmware updates are an important to do on your equipment to keep it current, fix issues with the camera, etc. I usually check Canon’s website every few months or so to see if they’ve released a new firmware version. Sometimes I’ll come across a funky issues with my camera from time to time, when I go to check Canon’s site, the newest update usually addresses the issue I’m having (thanks, Canon). This last weekend I was having major issues with my 7D, it would throw an error message while shooting repeatedly and require a restart to respond again. Not a good thing if it was going to serve as my second camera for tomorrow’s wedding. I have only get one chance to capture critical moments in a very important time for a couple, so I can’t have a camera on the fritz. Checked Canon’s site tonight, and what do ya know, the newest update addressed my exact issue. Yes! I can sleep easy tonight. Whether you are a casual shooter or working jobs, check your manufacturer’s site and see if your camera has been further tuned. Sometimes your camera has issues, maybe you are not even aware of the issues, and/or that they’re fixable. Over the last couple years, Canon has fixed a number of issues I personally experienced.

Wedding is on Whidbey Island tomorrow, so I’m doing the usual the night before – going over notes, schedules, cleaning memory cards, charging batteries, and going over the gear checklist. Should be a nice day for the lucky couple.

Control, Quality, and Performance are the three of the many factors we are going to look at today. There are ALL KINDS of bells and whistles on today’s cameras, but we are going to specifically concern ourselves with the ones that really truly matter when it comes to making a photograph.

Control is pretty basic really, but hard to appreciate/understand if you do not know how cameras capture light in order to make a photograph. In short, the camera has a couple parts that vary their size and speed in order to capture the proper amount of light. Most of your point and shoot cameras to not allow you to control this. In turn, you lose control of your image taking. I mean… how can you control your camera and take the photo you want if you can’t control your camera’s functions in which determine all this? These mysterious functions that I speak of are aperture, shutter speed, and ISO, all which contribute to making the image. If you do not fully know what these are or how to control them, you are not taking the photograph, your camera is, you are just clicking the button. Now don’t you feel special? Learning these functions and how to control them are covered in-depth and practiced in the beginners workshop, so don’t sweat not knowing this information, just know that it’s important stuff. A lot of students will walk into the beginners class with a camera that they do not know how to use, but by the end of the class, they are all well-skilled in how to take the photos they want with a DSLR and do it great!

Quality pertains mainly to how large and clean the image file is (we are talking about the image sensor here). This is not to be confused with the quality of the “photograph” as that mainly is hindered on your knowledge of light and skill with a camera. One of the first things you’ll notice when you shoot with a DSLR for the first time is that the quality of the image files kick the crap out of your P’nS image files. This comes down to a pretty basic principle. The camera sensor in the DSLR camera is MUCH larger. Think of your sensor just like a bucket that is outside capturing rain water, the larger the bucket the more rain it can capture. So the larger the sensor, the more light it can capture at any one time, and across a larger plane, which gives your camera more information in determining what to make of all that lighting coming into the camera. Aside from sheer light gathering capability, the DSLR sensors are built with much higher quality material, and they are much better at producing better colors, contrast, and light range levels. As your ISO setting rises for low light situations, your image quality goes down, but in much smaller increments on a DSLR than on a P’nS (we’ll hit this a little more in the performance section). Don’t get too wrapped up in this category, thinking that a $3,000 camera setup will make you a pro, cause it doesn’t. A nicer camera has the ability to take a better image quality file, but it’s the driver of the camera that’s setting the bar for the overall quality of the photograph. This is where your skill set and knowledge come in.

Performance is a tangent right off of quality in a way. Performance flirts with a couple topics, and those are speed and speed. Confused? Give me a sec to explain. Speed #1 is what you are probably already thinking of, and that is the rate in which your camera can take photos. Can your point and shoot take 8 frames a second? I didn’t think so. Are you a sports/activities photographer? Good luck guessing when to take a photo with your point and shoot, or you can just hold the trigger down on a nicer DSLR and take 8 frames a second, which 1 of 8 frames are much more likely to be better than your one-shot guess with the point and shoot. You can control the speeds of your captures, from 30 seconds to 1/8000th of a second. The second, and for portrait shooters, the more important of the two “speeds,” is low light performance. Sure, the human eye can see just fine in most indoor lighting situations, and that’s because our eyes rock and are very sensitive and dynamic in accommodating light changes. Camera sensors can’t keep up with our eyes with light changes, so we have to keep that in mind. Now, indoor light is very much considered a low light environment. This is where it is really important to have a large image sensor (a large rain bucket) to capture more light. So larger sensors are better at capturing more light, but they also perform much better at higher ISO settings. The higher your ISO setting is, the more sensitive your sensor is to light, making it so you don’t need as much light to make an image, but the downfall is that the higher the ISO setting, the more grainy your image will look. Imagine our rain bucket scenario again, and say we wanted to capture as much rain as possible so that we can do a water quality test on the captured water. The more water we have, the more accurate the test results will be. It’s the same with your sensor and ISO setting. Putting your ISO on a higher setting will effectively be the same as shrinking your rain bucket, so your camera does not have as much light to determine what the image should look like. I hope that makes sense.

Now, we can’t ignore that all this sounds great. The nicer the camera, aka the more money you throw at it, the nicer these factors will be for you as the photographer. It’s really easy to go overboard and get obsessed with having the next best thing, just because. I’ll tell you right now, the jump from a P’nS to a DSLR, as far as control, quality, and performance is night and day. The jump from a $600 to a $1000 DSLR is not nearly as noticeable, in fact, it’s downright hard to tell the difference. That’s why I can’t stress enough that it’s important to own and be knowledgeable with a DSLR camera if you are serious about photography, but don’t think that the nicer gear makes you a better photographer. Inherently, as you progress through the stages as a photographer, you’ll acquire better gear, as you should (everyone starts with a P’nS, then an entry DSLR, then a nicer lens, and so on). If you get to the point where you have paying clients, that’s great. As you move up in the ranks and charge more from your clients, you should invest in better gear to give them a slightly nicer product. It’s the least you can do as they are investing in you, so invest back, and watch the momentum follow. But at first, take it easy, get a DSLR that is comfortably do-able in your finances, and build your skill set. I can’t stress that enough. People spend hours upon hours comparing specs of all the gear out there, instead they could be out taking photos, building their skills and portfolio. Got a DSLR? Check, now go take photos and learn as much as you can, the rest will fall into place.

Got questions from this post or others you see on the site? Please do not hesitate to contact me with questions about gear or the workshops!